From the Mouth of the Whale

1635 Iceland. In a world of darkened superstition, poverty, and cruelty, Jonas Palmason, a poet and self-taught healer, has been condemned to exile for heretical conduct, having fallen foul of the local magistrate. Banished to a barren island, Jonas recalls his exorcism of a walking corpse, the frenzied massacre of innocent Basque whalers at the hands of local villagers, and the deaths of three of his children.

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A difficult and confusing book, yet skilfully written. If you have trouble with disjointed, surrealist writing, it's probably best to put this book down.

My favorite parts were the birth of Berglind, the exorcism of the draugr, the worship of Mary in the mound, all the random bits of natural history, and especially Lucifer's story at the very beginning.